


Dedication to Consistency

by Like_a_Hurricane



Series: Pernicious Prompting [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU's AU, I have no excuse for this, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone (Seizure7 was that you?) asked me at one point not too long after I got into writing <i>Dangerous Animals</i>, what it might be like if my particular role-reversed Loki & Tony from that 'verse were to meet with one of my others. This one can be interpreted as either meeting with the <i>Tricks of the Trade</i> 'verse, or possibly <i>Making a Point</i>, as it doesn't site anything too plot-specific in either of them.</p><p>This is NOT canon for <i>Dangerous Animals</i>, however. Just a cracky sort of outtake, if you will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dedication to Consistency

Tony Stark’s day had started off quite well, generally speaking. There had been a mostly-naked god of mischief in his bed in the wee hours of the morning, which had interrupted his sleep a bit, but not in any way he was averse to. Now, at a decidedly later morning hour, he was in his lab examining a strange compound that he and the rest of the Avengers had recently confiscated from a certain villain called Doom.

It was a strange, iridescent sort of element, flashing through different color-schemes like a cuttlefish having a seizure, and giving off strange combinations of exotic quantum-particles and energy signatures close enough to magic in nature to make Tony wonder if he should ask Loki to take a closer look at it once he got his fine behind out of the shower.

Or maybe he should just join Loki in the shower.

Tough choice.

The decision was made for him, to an extent, when the key-lime-sized chunk of matter suddenly glowed blazing white and kicked up a localized little cyclone.  
“JARVIS? I want it noted, for the record, that I didn’t even _do_ anything to it yet!” Tony shouted over the sudden din.

There was a strange echo after that, in a voice close to his own but not quite, which sounded like, _“-told you not to screw with-”_

Then there was a blinding flash of light, a crack, and the sound of something hitting a nearby worktable loudly, with wince-worthy force.

Tony lowered his hands as the light, painful even through tight-shut eyelids, began to fade. What he saw was a bit disconcerting. It looked a bit like a portal he’d seen the mutant called Gateway open for the Avengers on one occasion, but a bit less tidy in overall shape. It didn’t look wholly stable. Furthermore, on the other side appeared to be a lab disconcertingly similar to his own, work-in-progress Iron Man suit Mark VIII included.

Except that version of the suit seemed to be... green?

A low groan, decidedly from a living creature, and human-sounding, came from where something had crashed into the lab table nearest the wavering portal. With some caution, picking up a gauntlet on his way and putting it on, Tony approached the source of the noise. Upon rounding the corner, repulsor charged and held at the ready, Tony froze, feeling some of his neurons short-circuiting all of a sudden.

On the floor, in black designer jeans and a dark grey muscle-shirt, was a tall and lanky figure with a very familiar circle of light embedded in his chest, visible glowing blue through the cotton. He also had slightly long black hair that had been combed back more sleekly before his little trip through the portal had mussed it. His eyes were very green and went wide at the sight of Tony Stark dressed so similarly, arc-reactor included, aiming a gauntlet at his face. “Oh god,” he said, in a posh mostly-English accent. “You’ve gone fanboy.”

Tony blinked twice. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“Look, I know I’m a narcissist, but we’ve been over the whole shape-” He stopped, staring at the portal and seeming to come back to his senses a bit. “Oh. Oops.”

“Loki, if this is a prank attempt, you get major points for creativity, but I’m sooo not sure where you’re going with this one,” Tony said, annoyed and a little unnerved.

Loki Farbautisson turned and stared at him, eyes wider still as he looked the other inventor over from head to foot, pausing when he reached the arc reactor. “JARVIS? I’d like to work on a probability calculation, please.”

“Ignore him, JARVIS.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Stark.”

“Since when does my AI call you ‘sir’?” Loki said sharply, eyes narrowing.

“ _Your_ AI?” Tony sounded positively offended.

Pulling himself into a slightly more upright position, Loki looked around the lab, then at the portal, then back around the lab, and began giggling near-hysterically.

A bit disarmed by how much he enjoyed Loki laughing, all other circumstances aside, Tony hesitated. “What is it?”

“Oh, the odds of this happening. Oh good lord, you have no idea, do you?”

“Your shimmery portal is shrinking, incidentally. How important is that?”

“SHIT!” Loki launched himself to his feet, grabbing a lab stool along the way and experimentally trying to push it through the portal. This resulted in a burst of crackling energy that sent him staggering backwards, and sent the barstool flying across the room violently. “Oh, _that’s_ not good.”

“Is this––and this is crazy, because you look... well, this is fucking crazy––you’re not from here are you?”

“Very good, Mr. ... _Stark_. I’m from a parallel bit of multiverse not actually connected to this one, despite some disconcerting, ah––” He turned his head a bit, one eyebrow raised as he met the other inventor’s stare. “- _similarities_.”

“You sound more English than I’m used to, if only a bit,” Tony muttered.

“And you sound utterly American; it’s very disconcerting.”

A pause followed as they stared at each other.

“How do I usually-” Tony started, at the same time Loki asked, “Who am I in this-”

They were both interrupted by a crackling roar from the portal, which appeared to turn red-gold around the edges. A slightly-distorted echo rippled from it: _“You ridiculous mortal idiot, I warned your sorry ass!”_

Tony blinked a bit, thinking the voice sounded a bit familiar, the accent less so, and found himself having trouble placing it. “Is your version of JARVIS just generally a bit more, ah, easily riled?”

Loki snorted. “No. You really don’t recognize-” he started, then jerked and fell silent at the sound of a door on the opposite side of the room slamming open with force. He stayed very still, watching the portal, even as he peripherally notice Tony turn to look.

“What the hell have you done, Anthony? My wards around your lab registered something very nearly catastrophic.”

“Well, sweetheart, I can safely say this time: ‘I didn’t do it.’ Back me up, here, JARVIS. Also, why can’t you show up in a towel like anyone else fresh from the shower? I’m full of disappointment.”

“Mr. Stark is accurate in his assessment of his lack of responsibility for that particular, Mr. Lie-smith,” JARVIS interrupted. “However, I can vouch for his relative innocence in any other matter not at all.”

Even half-prepared as he was for the idea–––because if Loki Farbautisson could run into a version of Tony Stark looking human and sporting an arc reactor, then really, there was one logical conclusion which rose to mind concerning how this universe’s version of Loki might have ended up that had immediately leapt to mind––Loki Farbautisson still was a bit staggered by that little intro. _Lie-smith. Ha. Oh god._ He turned and almost hesitantly met his own stare from across the lab. “Holy shit. Leather and metal and everything.”

“Who are you and how do you dare wear _my_ face?” Loki Lie-smith snarled stalking toward his doppelgänger like a particularly irate panther. “No one in the nine realms should so dare impersonate-”

Tony stepped between them, arms waving a bit frantically. “Hey, woah, hey, stop, wait a second. JARVIS? Confirmation that out guest here is about as human as I suspect he is?”

“Accurate assessment. He appears more human than you do on all currently available scans.”

Loki the inventor glanced ceiling-ward thoughtfully. _More human than... huh._ His brain then went into calculation over-drive.

“See?” Tony insisted. “Harmless. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe.”

“What is this meant to prove?” the god of mischief inquired gravely.

“That I am not _from_ your universe,” Farbautisson said, light and droll as he could, which was quite a bit. “Good to see that I cut a fine figure even in absurd Asgardian costume, however.” He even offered a low whistle and a shameless grin. “I guess I really do have the face and body of a god. I must tell you, it’s so very good to know that people haven’t been exaggerating that over the years, and that I’ve been right all along.”

“You shut it,” Tony said flatly, turning and jabbing a finger at him.

Turning to square off with them, and absently noting the momentarily shocked and bemused expression on the chaos deity’s face at the sight of the arc reactor he wore, Farbautisson shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t think I will.”

“What mage is manipulating that portal of yours?” Loki Lie-smith asked sharply. “How was it created?”

“It may or may not have been a bit accidental, involving what may or may not have been a shard of shattered rainbow-bridge––” He paused at the flicker of recognition on the trickster’s face. “It broke in this universe too?”

“Hah! Funny you should ask,” Tony mused.

“Shut it, Stark.”

“Make me.”

Loki shot him a cold glare, ignoring the amused, appraising look that the more human version of himself was giving them.

“I should be deeply, deeply disconcerted if this is as much an inter-universal constant as Iron Man,” Farbautisson mused.

“If what is?” Tony asked, genuinely curious.

The intrigued look on the trickster god’s expression was more appraising, though. “Good to know perceptiveness is something we still have in common.”

The more human Loki smirked: sharp and a little smug.

Again, louder this time, a voice rang out from the portal, _“Farbautisson, if you’ve gotten killed over there, I will bring you back from the dead just for the chance to skin you alive for this!”_

“ _Farbauti’s_ son?” the god of mischief inquired lightly.

“Why, what’s your real surname, _Lie-smith_?” Farbautisson shot back.

“Laufeyson, if you must know.”

The green-eyed inventor covered his mouth with a hand and made a noise caught between amusement and dismay.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Farbautisson said quickly. “It’s just, ah, in my version of things, the god of mischief’s _mother_ was Laufey.”

“Same,” Loki said.

“Wait, what?” Tony looked between the two of them.

“Shape-shifting is an inherited trait among Jötunns,” said the god of lies. “When I killed King Laufey, he happened to be in male form. It hardly matters, does it?”

At that point, the portal turned suddenly crystal clear and an armored shape in blood red and brassy-gold leapt through it, landing in a crouch and scanning the room, stopping on the more human Loki before he even glanced the others’ way. “YOU!” He stood, looking utterly enraged, and almost exactly like Tony Stark if the mad inventor have ever perfected a facial expression that the words ‘divine wrath’ could so easily be applied to. “I _told_ you not to screw with it!” He rose to his feet, intending to stalk toward the inventor in an intimidating manner, but stopping short when Loki took the two strides necessary to meet him and seized hold of the front of his armor.

“Yes, yes you did, you were right, and now let’s get _out_ of here!”

Tony Stark, several feet away, was now gaping openly.

“Hm. Even the beard,” Loki Laufeyson murmured quietly.

“What’s wrong with my beard?”

Anton glanced their way and took on a deeply disturbed expression. “What the actual Norns’ dripping co-”

“Don’t finish that!” the other god of mischief interrupted. “I tried saying that once in a further-flung realm than this, and the results were _not_ pretty.”

“They must be more touchy here.”

“Apparently. You can leave now.” Laufeyson made a shooing gesture.

“I have to agree with myself on this, however: what’s wrong with the beard?” Anton asked, beginning to grin.

Loki Farbautisson rolled his eyes. Of _course_ Anton could only be fazed by meeting this universe’s oddly swapped versions of themselves for so long before his banter-instincts fully kicked in.

“If I truly had a problem with it, would it still be here?” asked Loki, god of lies.

“Hey!” Tony protested.

“Fair enough,” Anton mused.

“If you do not stop flirting with my Asgardian doppelgänger, Howartsson, I swear you will soon regret it, you _utter_ narcissist.”

“What, you don’t like more than one of me?”

“I believe I’ve already discussed which... _version_ of you I prefer,” Loki said lightly.

Anton’s brow furrowed, then abruptly cleared, and he swallowed thickly. “Oh.”

“Oh _that_ inter-universal constant,” Tony exclaimed, starting to grin. “I find this a bit encouraging, actually.”

“Good one you, Stark,” Loki the inventor credited.

Anton Howartsson blinked at that. “Wait, his name is seriously Sta-”

“Anton? If you could take me home, please?”

“I’m still tempted to skin you for this.”

“You’re too fond of my skin.”

“That’s _why_ I’m pissed at you,” Anton muttered, not quite inaudible to the others in the room, though not for lack of his trying; his ire was too bright with recent panic.

“Oh, before we leave, I do have one quick question: why is it that scans of my person appear _more_ human than yours?” Loki Farbautisson asked lightly, in Tony Stark’s general direction.

“Uh. Well.”

“That would be down to me,” offered the green-eyed god of mischief, who met the stare of his fellow deity pointedly. “And worth it, I might add.”

Anton looked fairly startled, and a bit sheepish. He raised both eyebrows curiously, still holding Laufeyson’s stare until he realized the look the more human version of himself seemed to be wearing: raw and hungry, with an edge of something akin to adoration.

“You sappy son of a-” Tony started.

“Stark, do not make me shut you up.”

“What if I want you to?”

Loki met his inventor’s eye then, his expression turning thoughtful, then smirked faintly. “Perhaps once we’re alone.”

“You two!” Tony pointed at them without looking, gaze still fixed on his target. “Get the hell out my lab.”

“Hang on. How did-” Farbautisson started, but got cut off by his own god of mischief grabbing his upper arms and pushing him backwards toward the portal. “What’s that look for?”

“I’m thinking.” Anton offered a grin.

Then they both passed through the portal, which coalesced shut a mere few seconds later.

“You really just suggested that to me?”

“Not you. Just a possible you.”

“You know what I mean,” Tony muttered.

Loki smiled faintly. “Well. It’s worked out for me so far.” He stroked Tony’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “That said: JARVIS, what was Tony doing shortly before that portal opened?”

“Making examinations on an alien artifact.”

“Colorful and slightly glowing?”

“Yes, Mr. Lie-smith.”

“I was going to ask you about it,” Tony assured. “I was just taking some initial scans. Really, I wasn’t-” He cut off when Loki pulled him into a kiss that made the rest of his words, thoughts, and awareness of the world beyond the pair of them, all evaporate. It was all heat and closeness and Loki. Then it was heat, closeness, Loki, and the feel of the edge of a worktable against his lower back just before the god of mischief lifted him enough for Tony to perch on the worktop.

“I’m inherently selfish, you know,” Loki purred. “The more places two possibilities meet in any particular part of the multiverse, the more real they become: the more constant. I rather like the idea that possessing you is something I can have no matter what else around us, or about us, might seem to differ. It makes it more concrete, does it not––the idea that I have you, and was always meant to have you?”

Tony shuddered. “I’m not usually big on fate or destiny or anything, but I really, really can’t disagree with you, here.” He pulled his lover in closer. “Think he’ll take the hint on the golden apples?”

“Would you?”

“Yeah. It’d scare me, but yeah. Yeah, I would.”

“Good.” Loki moved in to kiss him again.

Tony halted him slightly with a bite at his lips. “Armor. Off with it.”

“You look good in Aesir armor.”

“And you look good in tight jeans. I’d prefer both of us less clothed either way, now, though. Come on.”

Chuckling softly, Loki raised a hand, and facilitated unclothing with a word and a gesture before pulling himself and his lover still closer together.

 

~~

 

On the other side of the closing portal, a god of mischief all in red and gold pulled a green-eyed inventor close, only to pin him hard against the nearest wall with a snarl. “I might have lost you.”

“You didn’t.”

“If I’d been even a minute later, I could never have retrieved you. I could’ve hardly even begun to track you down.”

“Tony-”

“You listen,” the god of mischief hissed. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t.”

“Hey.” Loki slid long fingers through Anton’s hair, tangling them there. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t realize those words were in your vocabulary.”

“They generally aren’t,” Loki said sharply. Strongly implied was: _save for those close to my heart, when I’ve genuinely wronged._

Anton relented a little, relaxing a bit under the mad inventor’s touch. “I want to give you something, but I’ll need to steal it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I––it would make it...” He cleared his throat. “I would need someone else to plead my case where my parole is concerned.”

“Wait, wait, you’ll be seducing someone else? Pardon my objection.”

“Loki.”

“I know. Just––you’re being thick again.” The inventor sighed, his brow furrowed. “You haven’t actually asked me, you know.”

“I’m about to ask-”

“I mean about your parole.”

The god of lies hesitated. “Pardon?”

“I presumed it suited your plans to remain bound to that parole a while longer. And it’s not as though I can walk to Asgard myself to argue on your behalf; it would require some mutual planning to arrange in that regard, so I presumed you would _ask_ me once the moment was opportune.”

Anton stared up at him for a long moment. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Words, it seemed, had left him.

The inventor smiled a bit more warmly. “You were going to suggest something involving a golden apple, weren’t you?”

“How did you-”

“I pay attention. And Thor poured his heart out after the incident wherein he tried to explain the legal issues around the matter to Jane as the reason he couldn’t take her to Asgard yet. He was _very_ drunk.”

Anton huffed. “You’re maddening.”

“You like it.”

“I love it.”

Loki hesitated. “I love you too, I think.”

“You _think_?”

“Well, the other possibility is always that I’m losing whatever I have left that passes for sanity, but I don’t actually care if I am.”

“So... that apple.”

Loki smirked. “There are such perks to being in love with the more criminal prince, aren’t there?”

“Loki, come one, I’m making a momentary attempt at seriousness.”

“And I’m frankly offended that you think even for a moment that I’d say no.”

“You’re such an ass.”  


“You love it.”

“I do,” Anton murmured, and pulled him down into a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea just wouldn't leave me alone after writing for that "deal with the devil" prompt and coming up with the twist temporal-warpy stuff with a shard from the Rainbow Bridge.


End file.
